It turns out that our drive is directly tied to our drips of dopamine, a master neurotransmitter in our brain. Dopamine is not released when we obtain the object of craving or wanting; it is released prior to, to help us go after what we want. If you would like to wake up every day with passion and motivation to go after the things you want in your life, you must be able to master the release of dopamine. Dopamine is what gives you that flash of excitement when you think about achieving something. Like everything else in this world, the release of this neurochemical operates within a cycle. There is always a give and take. You may release escalating amounts of dopamine in pursuit of a goal but this is never sustainable and there will always need to be a reset once that goal is achieved. There will always be a down after the high. There are lots of productive people and high achievers that will tell you about the paradoxical disappointment that occurred after finally reaching the summit. This is the dopamine reset.
Dopamine is essential to motivation. We need to produce enough of it to feel a desire to make any changes in our lives. Any time you feel a craving for food, an itch to check your social media account, or a want or will to go after anything in your life – this is all mediated by releases of dopamine in your brain. It is what activates you to want to accomplish anything. Interestingly, dopamine has also been found to speed up our spontaneous blink rate which has been found to slow down or dilate our perception of time. The more dopamine you produce, the faster you blink, the slower time will seem to you. Dopamine is a precursor of epinephrine (adrenaline). This makes sense when you think about getting in a car accident – time seems to slow down for you during those milliseconds where dopamine/adrenaline is released in buckets. It makes your blink rate very rapid in order to help you to take in information as fast as possible and help adjust your reaction time to save your life. It is also important when you are doing life-saving work – an intentional slowing down of your perception rate will give you more time to work through the details of what needs to be done and respond quickly and effectively. More dopamine may give you an overall advantage in life as well; thinking that you have more time in your day to accomplish the things that need to get done.
To have sustainable dopamine release you need to do three things (1) Find a goal that ignites a passion inside of you and develop a relationship with it. Review it daily and tie it to something very important in your life. If the work is tedious and the goal is not exciting then learn to tie it to a reward that you really desire. Fuel the dopamine fire. (2) Find joy and tie your happiness to the pursuit of the goal and not the goal itself. If you learn to love the feeling of striving and the struggle of working toward something, then you are rewarding yourself for the production of dopamine and learning to love that state. When you tie your happiness to the outcome of your hard work, you are relating to the serotonin /pleasure chemical release and inevitably rewarding yourself for lower dopamine levels ( the reset instead of the production) (3) Expect recovery time. Reward yourself when you achieve a goal but do not excessively celebrate. The higher the high, the lower the low. It is good to acknowledge yourself for a job well done but just remember that this will prolong your recovery time and may even lead to depression after a “win”. You can also practice intentionally denying yourself little cravings. This will trick your body into thinking you need to produce higher levels to get the reward, making you rich in dopamine currency to use when it really matters and strengthening the system.