John Assaraf presents a short coaching-style lecture on the science of motivation: why clear goals alone are insufficient, how the brain resists change due to a comfort-zone "switch cost," and why strong emotional reasons are required to override that resistance. He leads a guided exercise (the "rocking chair test") to surface deeply felt reasons for goals and asks viewers to write and review those reasons daily; he teases a following video that will show brain-based methods to ensure follow-through.
Chapters
Hey, this is John. And welcome back. And today I want to share with you the science of motivation. And the word motivation, when I break it down in my own head, is your motive for action? Do you have a big enough motive for action? Now, in the last video, I asked you to get absolutely clear and choose what you wanted to achieve. And I wanted you to make sure that you are trading your life for what you love. How does that sound today? I'd like to start by asking you a question. Does it really matter to you if your life has real purpose or meaning? Will it matter to you if you live your life and get to the end of it feeling like you would have or could have or should have done more with it if circumstances were different? You know, more for yourself, more for the causes you believe, more for your family, more for the oceans, more for the climate, more for the air, the water. Would you wish if you could fast forward your life and be there that you could actually have more purpose and meaning? And the reason I ask you is because when you look into the science of motivation, most people set really nice goals, but they don't really have a big reason why they want to achieve it. So what happens? Their goals and dreams sound great when they say, I want to make a million dollars, I want to travel the world, I want to lose weight, I want to make a big difference in the world, I want new cars or I want to give to charities of my dreams. Now, the problem with having those types of goals strictly from a brain perspective and viewpoint is the science of motivation around setting goals like that. Now, they're great in their initial sense, but if you don't have the fire in your belly, if you don't have a big emotional reason why you really want to achieve something, the truth is you simply will not have the necessary, deeper reasons that your brain requires to keep you motivated and help you overcome when the doubts, the fears and the anxiety set in. And we know that whenever we're looking to achieve goals that we haven't yet achieved, we have to pay something that scientists call is the switch cost. The switch cost is when you set bigger goals. It requires you switching your thinking, it requires you managing new emotions, it requires switching some of your beliefs and some of your behaviors, all of which seem reasonable and doable, right? Well, what you may not be aware of and what you may not know is that your brain, and my brain hates anything that takes it out of its current comfort zone. Your brain and your emotions are wired to a fear circuit, and you may really want to achieve goals and dreams that you have. But since you're wired okay, and you love your comfort zone and your brain wants to keep you in your comfort zone, all of your thoughts and emotions and behaviors that require a switch in thinking causes you to actually be uncomfortable and revert back to your comfort zone. So, from a strictly brain science perspective, all of us fear the new okay, when we're uncertain and we almost always love our old comfort zones. And even when you constantly want to make the changes and you desire more good in your life, your unconscious mind is pulling you back into the safety of your comfort zone. And this is because we are biologically conservative in our energy expenditure. Our brain avoids anything that requires us to change our thinking, our emotions, or our behaviors. And that's why we become creatures of habit. From again, just a purely brain perspective, your brain is using 20 to 25% of all of your calories and energy. And anything that requires it to work causes it to say, hey, don't. Do I really have to? And if you don't have the emotional reasons why you're going to override that and pay the switch cost, you will succumb to your brain, causing you to have doubts and fears and anxieties. And it'll help you rationalize your way out of achieving your goals and dreams. And so, in order to achieve your new, bigger goals, you have to override your biological and psychological need and desire to stay in your comfort zone. And the first step to doing this is to get the emotional fuel that you need. Now, we are all motivated by our emotions more than our desires or goals. So getting your emotions aligned with your goals is your second step to having it all. So the first goal is clarity. Getting your emotions aligned with your goals is the second step to you having it all. And let me share with you a little exercise I learned many, many years ago. It's called the rocking chair test. And what I want you to do is I want you to imagine yourself sitting in a rocking chair, just going back and forth. And let's say you're 80 years old. Play with me in your mind. Now, what would your older, wiser self tell your younger you and self right now? What would your older, wiser self tell you to stop doing? What would your older, wiser self tell you to start doing? What would your older, wiser self tell you to trade your life for? So that when you got got to 80, you would have the most amazing memories and the most amazing life from here on to then? What would your older, wiser self tell you it's time for you to do right now. These questions will allow you to really seep into your psyche and use one of your amazing powers of looking into the future and bringing back the answers from then into your life right now. And as you allow these questions to sink into your mind, take the time to answer them. There's power in the answers and in the emotions you uncover. Now, your brain is motivated by seeking pleasure and achievement, but it's mostly controlled by avoiding real imagined pain or fear or danger. And one of the keys to achieving your biggest goals and dreams is to learn how to activate your motivational circuits in your brain. And you can do this right now or anytime by focusing on your big goals and actually achieving them and your big dreams. And when you focus on them daily and you find the emotional reasons why you will achieve your goals and dreams versus focusing and feeling the emotions of why you won't or why you can't. When you focus on how you will, why you will you actually activate your pleasure circuits and your motivational circuits. So what I want you to do is take five minutes, five minutes after you watch this video and write down as many reasons why you must achieve your biggest goals and dreams and look at them daily right after you wake up and when you go to bed. And when you do that, this is going to help you prime or activate your motivational circuits in your brain and activate the genius part of your brain called the left prefrontal cortex. So now that you've set a few goals and now that you've made a list of why you must achieve your goals, I'm assuming you're going to do this exercises in the next video. I'm going to show you how to take your goals, how to take the emotions that you have, and I'm going to show you how to make 100% certain that you actually follow through to completion to achieve your biggest goals and dreams. The most common mistake people make is thinking that they can just set goals, get excited about them and constantly take action to achieve their goals. But this is one of the biggest mistakes and fallacies that people make that I will teach you in the next video how not to make ever again. If you do the little bit of work that I've given you in the last video and in this one, you'll be ready for the next video that I'll send you the next couple of days and I'll share with you the latest brain based ways to get every fiber, every cell of your being to believe and act daily and weekly and monthly in ways that will shatter any of the results you've achieved in your life up until now. And I'll show you some secret ingredients that will have you every day, every week, and every month. Follow through to completion to achieve your biggest goals and dreams. So for today, you already have what you need to do. After this video, I'd like you to share one of your biggest reasons why you must achieve your goals and dreams. Click on the Share button so we can help many, many more people. And then take five minutes and write down a few more of your biggest reasons why you must achieve your goals and keep those for yourself. So write one down, share, and I'll send you a video in the next couple days. I hope you've loved this as much as I love sharing and teaching.
