There's got to be more to life than this!
What’s the meaning of life? Who am I? Why am I here? Is it all pointless???
Where are you right now?
Are you in a dorm room staring at the wall wondering what you are going to do with your life...
Waving as your kids get on the bus and wondering…now what...
At your office in front of a computer doing the same thing you have done every weekday for more years than you want to admit...
Retired and sitting on your couch wondering how you are going to fill
those long empty hours...
Feeling lost or unfulfilled has no age boundaries. It crosses all demographics. Young, old, man, woman, rich, poor, or like many of us somewhere in between.
Do you dream big and hope one day you will reach those dreams, or have you stopped believing you were destined for greatness? Did you buy into the thought that you should just accept where you are and at best shoot for mild contentment? Are you overwhelmed at the thought of doing anything more than just getting by day to day? Are you in a rut, but have no idea how to climb out?
Consider this…What would you do if you knew you could not fail and you had any resource you needed? Would you wake up tomorrow and lead the same life you lived today? If you woke up tomorrow strong, healthy, fit, wealthy, filled with energy and capable of accomplishing whatever you wanted, what would you do?
Name it!
Would you hop on a plane and travel the world? Go back to school? Start a business?
Lose weight? Exercise and get fit? Start a charity? Run for public office? Become a rock star? Apply for your dream job?
How would you live your dream? Does this list exhaust you? If every reason you can’t do something were suddenly resolved, what would you do?
If you’re like most people, the sheer magnitude of that possibility leaves you a little breathless and unsure. Who at one time or another in their life hasn’t asked themselves “What do I really want out of life?” Relax…take a deep breath. I’m not going to ask you to commit the next 30 years of your life to one thing. But if you find yourself wondering why some people are living the dream, while you feel like Bill Murray in ground hog day, reliving the same day over and over, it's time to make a change.
There are a few things you can do to make the process easier. Dr. Gail Matthews, a psychology professor at the Dominican University in California, studied the art and science of goal setting and she discovered that people who name their goal and write it down are 42% more likely to achieve their goals. Sharing your goal with a friend who believes in you increases your success rate even more. You can read more here.
Grab a piece of paper and and let yourself daydream. Write down anything that comes to mind. Go crazy! Even if you think you would never have the courage to accomplish it, go ahead and write it down. Skydiving sounds cool but you're afraid of heights? Write it down. This exercise starts to stretch your mind to the possibilities. You may ultimately cross several things off of the list but it will give you an idea of how you let your own fears or doubts hold you back.
Now start with the one goal you keep circling back to. Get a fresh piece of paper and write it at the top.
Your "Drug" of Choice
Let’s start small. Why don’t we do the things we dream of? What’s stopping us?
Here’s where it gets interesting. Your brain has many neurotransmitters, and these neurotransmitters send chemical messages to your brain. Science shows that motivation is directly related to the neurotransmitter dopamine.
But this one seems to have a bad GPS sometimes. A research study that was published in the May 2, 2012 Journal of Neuroscience, conducted by a team of postdoctoral students and a Professor of Psychology David Zald showed some interesting results. They did a PET scan (positron emission tomography) of two types of people… The first were described as “go getters” and the others as “slackers”. Not surprisingly they found that the “go getters” had high levels of dopamine in the area of the brain called the striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex which are connected to reward and motivation. But what surprised them was that in the group of “slackers” there were high levels of dopamine in the anterior insula which is connected to emotion and risk perception! When the dopamine went “off track” there was a reduced desire to work or achieve a long term goal!
Which way did it go?
There are several pathways that dopamine takes. If it checked the map it would take the mesolimbic turn straight to the nucleus accumbens. Right then and there your brain goes “Hey something good is going to happen. Oh goody I get a reward!” But unfortunately, not all dopamine takes the right turn…not all turns lead to pleasure. Sometimes it leads to high stress, lack of drive, depression and an inability to pursue your goals to completion.
Too much of a good thing is a bad thing. Too much dopamine can lead to impulsive behavior, too much risk taking. Too little dopamine…slowed reactions, lack of motivation, low libido, sleep problems, moodiness, hopelessness, not enough risk taking. To complicate matters, some people just have low levels of dopamine. As we age our dopamine levels can decline.
A study of 25,000 people done by the University College London, published in Current Biology shows “The steady decline in risky choices with age matches a steady decline in dopamine levels. Throughout adult life, dopamine levels fall by up to 10% every decade.” While we may not want to take extreme risks at 80 years old, no risk at all can lead to atrophy and mental decline.
But where does that leave me?
The first thing you can do is increase your level of dopamine. There are several foods that can help with that.
Dopamine is made from the amino acid l-tyrosine which is commonly found in protein-rich foods.
Here’s a list of foods that may increase dopamine from “Be Brain Fit” by Deane Alba https://bebrainfit.com/increase-dopamine/
all animal products
almonds
apples
avocados
bananas
beets
chocolate
coffee
fava beans
green leafy vegetables
green tea
lima beans
oatmeal
olive oil
oregano
peanuts
rosemary
sea vegetables
sesame and pumpkin seeds
soy products
turmeric
watermelon
wheat germ
Fava beans (also called broad beans) are one of the few foods that contain l-dopa, a direct precursor to dopamine that is used to treat Parkinson’s disease. (13)
Foods high in natural probiotics such as yogurt, kefir, and raw sauerkraut can also increase natural dopamine production.
But what about those pathways?
Turn on your internal GPS. Remember Pavlov’s Dogs? Pavlov rang a bell every time he fed his dogs. Before long, every time he rang the bell, the dogs began to salivate. They anticipated the reward.
Grab that pad of paper where you wrote down your goal. Now break that goal into small easily achievable steps. For example, we all say we want to lose 10, 20, 30 or more pounds. Maybe your goal is to lose weight. But you’re not going to drop thirty pounds in a day. That reward seems too far away. You may not even be able to drop a pound in a couple of days. But you can spend a few minutes getting all of the unhealthy foods out of your cabinets. Pack it in a box to donate to a food shelter (non-perishable of course). Check that accomplishment off of your list! That one check mark just triggered your reward system. A feeling of accomplishment.
The next day, find 6 healthy meals on a healthy eating website and write out a grocery list. The next, go shopping. The next day set a goal to take a 15 minute walk. You get the picture. With each small accomplishment, you will increase those levels of dopamine, and point it in the right direction.
Now I’m a big fan of the once a week reward. Give yourself a break from the work one day a week and just chill. Having that one day to look forward to can make even the dry days of goal seeking easy to get through.
Now this method works for just about any goal. Want to take an exotic trip? Start that GOAL list! Grab your paper and write where you want to go in big letters at the top. Maybe even print out a picture of it to keep you excited. Now lay out the easily achievable steps. Go online and figure out how much it will likely cost to get there. Include side trips and meals…everything. Once you have a number, decide how much money you could set aside per day, per week, per month.
Each day you meet that expectation, give yourself a big red star next to that line item. If you miss a day or have a momentary financial setback, use that day to do more planning and get back on track the next day.
Now Go Out and Live
In coming articles, we will explore different methods for keeping motivated no matter what personality type you are. Go getter, Slacker, Couch Potato or Ultra Marathoner, different people need different methods to motivate them, and sometimes you may need to change methods several times just to keep it interesting. With a little encouragement you will achieve more than you ever dreamed of! Life is too full and rich to keep your dreams in a box, only to take them out from time to time, wistfully wishing for more. Let's take the first steps together!
