Dopamine is a funny thing.
Your brain is addicted to dopamine because it is a feel-good chemical. And everyone wants to feel good all the time.
Therefore, your brain will try to encourage whatever feels good.
That's where we lose.
I believed that dopamine controls us only when we choose a path of least resistance and enjoy rewards without putting in enough effort.
For example, watching a series, playing video games for hours, or eating ice cream.
However, reading a lot of self-development books can give you dopamine hits.
There's too much planning and no action involved. You feel like you are making progress by making plans, but you are just avoiding work.
I have about 20+ paperback books that I haven't read, 60+ audiobooks and maybe hundreds of pdf books on my computer.
I believed that consuming more and more content on self-development was the answer, but I was wrong.
Parkinson's Law states, "Work expands to the extent that time is available for its completion."
You are less efficient when you have more time to complete a task.
When I was a kid, I watched cartoons on TV for hours. Studying wasn't that important because I wasn't aware of how short our life is.
The same pattern repeated during my college days.
My grades dropped because of my poor sleeping pattern. I would binge-watch an entire season of a series in one night.
You don't value time when you are in your early 20s. You still have decades to live, build a career, and make money. Time is not that important for you because it feels like you have more than enough left.
You don't value your time, just like most rich kids don't value their parent's money. They assume that the supply of money will never end. But one day, it ends, and they don't know what to do then.
The illusion of unlimited time ends when you enter your late 20s.
💰You have a limited amount of money.
😕You haven't figured out what you want to do with your life.
😥You have to figure it all out in the next few years, or you may fall into hopelessness.
The pressure builds up. Remember, Parkinson's Law - Now you put more effort because you have less time left.
I am a mechanical engineer. I have worked in manufacturing, education, various small-time businesses, and fast food chains.
Choosing different careers gave me a dopamine hit. I felt like I was doing things, going places when I was just trying things for fun and quitting them after a while.
I lacked the focus to stick with something for long enough to build a successful career in it.
Whatever industry you are in, you have to be disciplined enough to persist.
Just look around you and see that the most successful writers on hive have one common habit- discipline to show up daily.
Often, new people believe that successful people in any field have an easy path. Success came easy for them. It was an overnight thing as if it was bare luck.
No one achieves anything without a significant amount of effort.
New people(like me) are looking for dopamine hits.
Dopamine is not evidently wrong. It's responsible for your motivation, attention and decision-making process. You just have to control the dopamine effects and then use it for your benefit.
Real progress is when you apply things.
I have tried to improve myself through willpower, motivation and goals.
Motivation — you have it some days, and other days, you don't.
Your goals keep changing.
Willpower will burn out(if you don't train it regularly).
However, willpower is like a muscle. The more you train it, the stronger it becomes.
It was difficult for me to write even a single post when I started writing. Somehow, I focused more on the number of posts than the quality of articles.
The repetition habit helped me, and now, it's easier for me to write something than it was a few years back.
The discipline to do something is directly proportional to the amount of time you have spent doing it.
It will be easier to write an article for someone who writes daily, compared to someone like me, who writes for a few days and then gets distracted by other things for weeks.
Another example of willpower training is gym junkies.
I believe that doing exercise is the easiest way to build your willpower.
It's difficult for most people to go out to the gym and exercise. But gym junkies who have built their willpower muscles through regular exercise enjoy their gym time.
Gym junkies love to do laborious exercise. Going to the gym is a fun thing for them. It motivates them.
What's hard for ordinary people is a fun activity for fitness freaks.
Similarly, when you write daily, you work on your willpower.
You are the product of your habits. You become what you continuously repeat.
Habits are the way to conserve your energy.
Your habits automate so that you put the least amount of effort.
Putting the least effort and still getting rewards activates the feel-good chemicals.
Writing content takes willpower.
Saving and investing money takes willpower.
Learning new skills takes willpower.
And you slowly train your willpower to make it stronger.
Finish Things You Start
Completing something you have started feels good.
Finishing a book or a course feels good.
Thinking about an idea, writing an article, and posting it feels good.
The feel-good chemical activates, and it makes you repeat that behaviour.
Just train that behaviour in a way that benefits you over the long term.