Habits Archives - Farther to Go!

12 Years After

April 25, 2024 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

Twelve years ago this month, I headed off on the path I came to call Farther to Go! I was on a path of sorts at the time—well, on a sidewalk, anyway, heading west on Academy, into what I tend to refer to as the (expletive deleted) New Mexico wind—when I experienced a profound moment of ferocious dissatisfaction. It’s true that the wind had something to do with it, but the wind was also emblematic of my then current state of affairs and my feeling about it.

I wasn’t entirely sure where the new path would lead, I had no idea what I would find out along the way or who I would encounter, and there was certainly no inkling of Farther to Go! on the horizon.

During the past 12 years, I’ve read an insane amount of information about the brain and behavior. Many, but not all, of the books are identified on the Reading List page on my website. That list doesn’t include all the articles and other materials I’ve accessed. All my bookshelves and file drawers are maxed out. There’s been a lot of input into the system (me, that is; into my system).

In addition to applying what I learned to my own life, I’ve written hundreds of blog posts, articles, and newsletters, produced countless handouts and exercises, and created workshop and course materials galore. The 36 3-ring binders lined up on the desk behind me can attest to my output.

I was armed with a small amount of knowledge about the brain and behavior when I managed to look up at exactly the right moment to take advantage of the explosion of research in this arena. It was serendipitous to a great extent.

What kind of surprises me now is how well what I’ve learned has held up. Over the course of these 12 years, I have significantly revised my perception of only the four key elements outlined below.

Dopamine

Dopamine was long considered to be the pleasure neurochemical. A “hit” of dopamine was thought to be like a hit of a drug such as cocaine or heroin (more metaphorically than factually). This was still the prevailing view when I first learned about the brain’s reward system. Many people haven’t yet let go of this mistaken idea, which has led to some really silly concepts like dopamine detoxing.

Fortunately, I encountered the work of Kent Berridge early in my exploration and research. He’s an expert on dopamine and rewards and his work set me straight and helped me understand how essential rewards are in regard to behavior, whether we’re aware of them or not.

Dopamine is the wanting neurochemical. It’s associated with anticipation or craving or desire. When we attain what we anticipate, crave, or desire, other neurochemicals referred to as liking neurochemicals are released. Liking neurochemicals such as serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphin generate feelings of pleasure.

Dopamine motivates us to move (physically as well as psychologically), to pursue what we want, to take action. This wanting system is considered to be robust, while the liking system is considered fragile. Our experience of pleasure waxes and wanes, but wanting is always with us. This isn’t a personal problem or a design flaw; wanting is absolutely essential for both surviving and thriving.

Rewards

In The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg described what he calls the habit loop, which consists of a cue, a behavior, and a reward. This was a bit of a revolutionary idea because we tend to think of a habit strictly in terms of behavior. Duhigg’s research led him to see that all three parts of the habit loop had to be in place in order for the brain to initiate, run, and end the habit.

That means that if we want to create a new habit, we need to determine what the cue will be, what the behavior will be, and how we will reward ourselves. I think this is accurate.

But Duhigg says that if we want to change a habit, we have to identify the reward we’re getting from the current behavior and substitute a new behavior that will give us the same reward. He makes a compelling case in his book. The problem, though, is that as far as the brain is concerned, liking neurochemicals are the reward, while to us a reward is something tangible or meaningful or perhaps symbolic.

Trying to identify a reward we’re getting for an existing behavior is like trying to figure out why we have a tendency to react the way we do to rain or a particular type of music or stray dogs or umbrella thorn trees. We can’t possibly figure that out with any degree of certainty—and even if we could, it wouldn’t make any difference.

In the case of changing a habit, what’s important is to be consistent about providing a reward for the new behavior until the brain takes over the job of releasing liking neurochemicals without the added stimulus.

Berridge is helpful here, too. He points out that our conscious perception of the reward we’re getting is essentially a story that may or may not have anything to do with what’s going on in the brain. The purpose of a reward is to get the brain to pay attention to a desirable behavior we just engaged in to increase the likelihood we will do it again. It’s positive reinforcement, plain and simple. It doesn’t matter if the reward we supply is related in any way to the behavior. It just has to be something we like so the brain will release liking neurochemicals. (I’ve done two consecutive 30-Day Challenges based on the same behavior, each with a different reward. Neither reward has anything to do with the behavior; both rewards have been extremely motivating.)

System 2

Although he didn’t come up with the terms—and dual-process theory was not a new idea—Daniel Kahneman did popularize the concepts of “System 1” and “System 2” in his best-seller, Thinking, Fast and Slow.

According to dual process theory, the unconscious part of the brain, System 1, is “fast,” meaning it processes 11 million bits of information at a time, while consciousness, System 2, is “slow” by contrast, as it can only process 40 bits of information at a time. There are many other significant differences between conscious and unconscious processing.

Kahneman, who died recently, won a Nobel Prize. He was considered a genius. I think that’s why it didn’t initially occur to me to question this binary division of thinking processes. But doubts started creeping in quite a few years ago. The characteristics attributed to System 2 thinking simply cannot be applied across the board to conscious thought. (There are even some researchers who question whether or not there is such a thing as “conscious thought.”)

After grappling with the problem for a while, I concluded that System 2 is a part of consciousness—a very, very small part of it, one that we access quite infrequently, possibly never. If we use Freud’s iceberg to represent consciousness and the unconscious, with consciousness being the tip of the iceberg, then System 2 is the tip of the tip. I’ve come to refer to the rest of conscious thought as ordinary consciousness. It has some attributes in common with System 1 and some attributes in common with System 2. Most of the time the stream of consciousness just flows through our minds, carrying us along with it.

Ordinary consciousness can be extremely useful and it has a role in creating transformational change, but accessing System 2 is essential for it. If we believe we’re accessing System 2 thinking just by being awake, we’re missing the boat entirely.

Autopilot

It seems hard to believe that the scientific estimate for how much of our behavior is outside conscious control was once a mere 40%—and that 40% was hard for a lot of people to swallow. Neuroscience has now concluded, logically, that 100% of our behavior is generated by our unconscious.

“Autopilot” is the short-hand term for this. It’s somewhat of a misnomer, though, because it was intended to contrast with the supposedly conscious “pilot” that makes intentional rather than automatic choices. But consciousness can’t and doesn’t make moment-to-moment choices.

Accessing System 2 can provide us with some ability to steer our personal ship in terms of determining direction and affecting future outcomes. But it can’t affect the choices we’re making now or the outcomes we’re getting as a result.

Duhigg’s conception of what happens at the end of a habit loop is that the brain is returned to conscious control. This is a perspective from the point of view of ordinary consciousness. It implies, first, that the brain is normally under conscious control, which it isn’t. Second, it fails to take into consideration that the unconscious is attending to multiple things at the same time, which means it is generating multiple action sequences, not just one. So the idea that the brain is “on autopilot” for the duration of a habit and then returned to the control of the pilot is both inaccurate and simplistic.

Habits are a bit different than the rest of our so-called autopilot behavior, but the fact remains that all of our behavior is initiated by the unconscious. If that weren’t the case, we wouldn’t survive long enough to get to the point of contemplating thriving.

Provisional Assessments

There are bound to be other conclusions that will be overturned by the ongoing research into how the brain works. So it’s useful to consider the conclusions we’ve arrived at thus far as provisional assessments. Provisional assessments are essential because they give us something to work with and to test, and they indicate new directions for further examination.

I’m excited to keep learning in this area. I don’t think there is any other exploration as challenging and potentially rewarding as this: humans investigating our own internal operational systems from the perspectives of our internal operational systems. Some contortionism required!

Here’s to many more years of learning—and of overturning.

Habits: The Dirty Lowdown

January 31, 2018 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

In order to create or change a habit, you have to retrain your brain. Your brain, however, actively resists your attempts to retrain it, viewing your interference as not only unwelcome but also potentially dangerous. Fortunately, as far as your brain is concerned, history indicates you’re not very adept at this retraining stuff. Plus you usually give up way too easily and quickly. So your brain doesn’t consider you much of an actual threat.

There’s something to be said for your brain’s point of view. But it’s not good news for you. Your habits can either provide the scaffolding that supports your endeavors or they can completely derail you. They affect every aspect of your life. If you want your life to be a consistently satisfying and meaningful one, you need to be able to reliably manage your habits.

Here are five facts to help you understand habits from your brain’s perspective.

1. Your Brain Has the “Habit” Habit.

It is primed to turn behaviors into habits, with or without your participation, in order to save energy. Habits make up the bulk of your behavior.
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Your brain does not share your opinions or judgments about whether your habits are good or bad. As far as your brain is concerned, any habit is a good habit.
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To succeed: Use your brain’s “habit” habit to your advantage instead of letting it run unfettered.

2. Habitual Behavior Is Unconscious.

Once a behavior becomes a habit, you no longer have conscious control over it.
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The fact that you understand the benefit of doing (or not doing) something has absolutely no impact on the part of your brain that runs your habits.
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To succeed: Communicate with your brain by your actions, not by your thoughts and good intentions. Your brain responds to repetition and persistence.

3. Your Brain Is Predictive Rather than Reactive.

Your brain is constantly trying to figure out what’s going on, what it means, and what you should do about it.
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By the time you’re aware you’re about to do something, you have less than two-tenths of a second to veto your brain’s directive.
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To succeed: Since your brain is always planning ahead, you have to plan ahead, too.

4. Habits are More than Behaviors.

Habits consist of three parts: a cue or trigger, a routine (the actual behavior), and a reward. This is known as the habit loop.
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Your brain is motivated to move you toward anything it finds rewarding.
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To succeed: Accept, understand, and use your brain’s reward system.

5. Your Brain Is Profoundly Averse to Change.

Your brain uses its considerable processing power and speed to maintain the status quo.
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To change the status quo, you must have a very compelling why (10 on a scale of 1-10).
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To succeed: Identify your desired outcome, not just your objective! (How is your status quo going to change once you successfully create or modify a particular habit?)

The good news is that once you’ve created a positive new habit or changed an existing negative one, your brain will dedicate itself to maintaining your new status quo just as zealously as it did the old one.

Ready to Amp up Your Creativity?

May 24, 2017 by Joycelyn Campbell 2 Comments

An article in 99U offered its readers 10 “creative rituals” used by various creative professionals, including writers, entrepreneurs, and designers. Of course, you don’t have to be a creative “professional” to be creative. Creativity is an approach to being in the world.

And, as the article’s author Sean Blanda says:

Sustained creativity doesn’t come from a flash of brilliance or a single afternoon of inspiration. It comes from a consistent routine that serves as the bedrock for getting things done.

There’s a difference between rituals, routines, and habits. Jack Kerouac touching the ground nine times before writing is a ritual. Writing every day is a habit. “Brainstorming at the bar” (item 9 below) is a routine. There’s value to be had from all of these suggestions, but some are more valuable than others. (Hint: Don’t miss #7.)

#1 Take a Quarterly Vacation

Venture capitalist Brad Feld says that taking a week off every three months with his wife is the most impactful thing he’s done. He leaves his computer at home and turns his smart phone over to his wife for the duration. While away from home, Feld reads, relaxes, sleeps, and generally enjoys himself, returning home refreshed.

Maybe taking four weeks of vacation a year is feasible for you, but even if it isn’t, the recommendation to take time away from your regular work and routines is a good one. The amount of time you spend away isn’t as important as getting away—and really disconnecting when you do.

#2 Hold a “Retrospective” After Projects

Harper Reed (former Obama campaign CTO) said his team relied on meeting at the end of each project to ask what the experience was like, what went right, and what went wrong. They didn’t wait till the end of the campaign to do it; they conducted many such meetings along the way. That allowed them to pay attention to feedback and adjust course.

It may be easier to hold a retrospective meeting with a team, but even if you work solo you can incorporate a reflective activity into your workflow. It’s difficult to identify what’s working and what’s not working if you don’t stop, even briefly, to assess. Another way of using this process is to stretch your thinking by asking those questions near the start of a project or goal from the perspective of having completed it.

#3 Write Every Day

Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild, is a professional writer who also uses writing “as a tool for self-discovery” when she’s trying to work through something or make a tough decision. She believes that “writing forces you to locate your clarity.”

I’m a big fan of developing a writing practice, but I think writing only leads to clarity if you use it deliberately and intentionally. As I wrote in W Is for Writing, “in order to get the best results, you need to be clear from the outset about what you want from your writing.”

#4 Create an “Interesting People Fund”

Writer and entrepreneur Ben Casnocha invests in an “interesting people fund,” which he describes as a pre-commitment strategy. He pre-commits both time and money to meeting interesting people to make it more likely that he’ll actually do it. As he says, it takes time to develop any kind of relationship.

I think that allocating resources (time and money) to cultivate relationships with interesting people can, over time, alter your mental model. You’ll be on the lookout for people who interest you and you’ll get into the habit of reaching out to them to make a connection on more than a superficial level. This may be more important in our high-speed, digitized lives than it has ever been!

#5 Keep “Tear Sheets” to Get Inspired

Designer Sarah Foelske gets stuck once in a while; that’s when she “visits her tear sheets.” (Tear sheets are pages clipped or torn from a newspaper or magazine that show a client’s ad.) She’s saved things she likes or that inspire her, including books, beautiful packaging, or pages from magazines. She finds that getting away from the project she’s working on and flipping through her tear sheets, even if for a few minutes, can spark new ideas.

This is really an inspiration file, so it could take almost any form, depending on what inspires you. There’s such an abundance of new brain and behavior information that my habit is to either bookmark or print copies of the articles that interest me to check out later. That may seem like research more than inspiration, but it’s really both. I often get new ideas from what I read and make new connections, which energizes me—and that, I think, is the point of an inspiration file.

#6 Nap Every Day

News anchor Pat Kiernan takes a nap. Every day. He says he’s “super protective” of his nap and keeps a hard line about it. “You have to learn how to say no.” He wants to be rested and healthy, so he has learned to resist the temptation to do everything he’s invited to do.

There’s a lot of research to support the benefit of daily napping, and I know several people who swear by it. But I confess that I’m not one of them. If a nap during the day recharges you, then take Kiernan’s advice to heart and treat nap time as you would any other important appointment on your calendar. If you’re intentional about making it a habit, you’ll find that much easier to do.

#7 Envision What You Will Be Remembered For

Rapha founder Simon Mottram writes “faux business pieces,” articles for Financial Times or Wall Street Journal as if the company had already accomplished their current goals. In one article, he described how Rapha had revolutionized the cycling market and was “leading more people to discover road racing as a lifestyle and a fundamental part of their lives.” He was very specific about what that looked like and how many customers the company had. Five years later, he says, the article pretty accurately described the company’s reality.

“Envision what you will be remembered for” doesn’t go far enough. This is an example of identifying and visualizing your desired outcome clearly and specifically enough to try it on for size—and to use as a benchmark to tell when you’ve gotten to where you wanted to go. The desired outcome is not the same thing as the goal. A good goal is S.M.A.R.T., but that’s not enough. You have to identify what’s going to be different afterward and what it’s going to feel like and look like—for you and for others. (Essentially, why do you want to achieve this goal or create this thing?) Taking the time to identify your desired outcome is a habit that pays spectacular dividends and one that you can incorporate into planning anything of any nature in any area of your life.

#8 Brainstorm at the Bar

Designer James Victore says he does his “think-work” at the bar and his “work-work” in his studio. He sketches on paper, usually in a bar or restaurant. His routine includes going to the park to write (longhand) for an hour or so in the morning and then taking his writing to the studio to work on. Afterward, he goes to a bar or restaurant, has a beer, and refines his idea or does some sketching. He uses his studio for “putting stuff together” rather than coming up with ideas.

I can relate to this one! I discovered that while I can do all kinds of work in my home office, one thing I cannot do there is any kind of long-range planning. I’d tried taking the planning to various coffee shops, but that wasn’t effective, partly because I don’t—and apparently don’t want to—equate coffee shops with work. But I discovered, almost by accident, that taking my planning materials to the nearby library allows me to get an amazing amount of work done in a relatively brief amount of time. So notice how your environments affect you and figure out which environment is the most effective for the task or process you’re working on. Develop a routine around what works rather than around what you think should work.

#9 Get Out of the Building

Garrison Keillor credits getting out into the “observable world”—as opposed to sitting and looking at a blank page—as providing him with “the start of something.” He recommends walking around with scrap paper and pen to take notes on what you see in the world. These observations and notes are valuable even if they don’t make it into your final work because “everything—everything—starts with the observable world.”

Your brain usually determines what you pay attention to, so you attend to things selectively. We all do. Check out The Invisible Gorilla video on YouTube for verification. Creating a practice of not just noticing what you notice (the usual suspects), but consciously directing your attention can definitely change your perspective. Tell your brain what kinds of things to look for and it will find them. It will also make connections and see patterns that might otherwise have been invisible.

#10 Engage in “Morphological Synthesis”—or Not

Artist and filmmaker Ze Frank uses morphological synthesis to segment his thinking process into parts. He says, “You take 4-5 adjectives or characteristics and then brainstorm in that direction.” He then “flips back and forth between extremes until something interesting comes out of it” and then repeats the process. He likes it because it “forces you to explore the outside boundaries of things.”

OK, that’s interesting, but what Frank also said in the same interview is that he makes something every single day. He said it’s the only design habit he has. “No matter what, I make something.” Developing the habit of making something every day is awesome. It doesn’t have to be big. It doesn’t have to be “successful.” It doesn’t have to be totally original. Just make something. If you’re a writer, write something. If you’re a cook or a chef, cook something. The result doesn’t need to be a tangible object, however. This is about creativity, after all. Create an idea or a concept. Make a new connection between ideas, objects, or people. Have some kind of impact.

I think this is a wonderful agenda to take on: what did I make today?

Z Is for Zombie Systems

April 26, 2017 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

What could zombie systems (also known as alien subroutines) and blindfolded cup-stacking possibly have to do with behavior change? Quite a bit, as it turns out. But first, what exactly are these zombie systems and alien subroutines? According to David Eagleman in Incognito:

We harbor mechanical, “alien” subroutines to which we have no access and of which we have no acquaintance. Almost all of our actions—from producing speech to picking up a mug of coffee—are run by alien subroutines, also known as zombie systems.

Eagleman uses the terms interchangeably. He says the term zombie emphasizes the lack of conscious access, while alien emphasizes the foreignness of the programs.

Some alien subroutines are instinctual, while some are learned; all highly automated algorithms become inaccessible zombie programs when they are burned down into the circuitry.

Cup-Stacking Smack-Down

Cup-stacking, at least as performed by Austin Nabor, is an example of a highly automated algorithm—and thus a zombie system.

Nabor has been practicing all the moves involved in cup-stacking regularly for several years. As a result, physical changes have taken place in his brain to hard-wire cup-stacking. He can now perform it automatically without thinking about it, which is why he can do just as well when he’s blindfolded as he can when he can see what he’s doing.

In the video (link above), 10-year-old Nabor faces off against David Eagleman mano-a-mano, as it were, and hands him a resounding defeat. Eagleman said of the contest that he wasn’t even an eighth of the way through his routine when Nabor finished. During the competition, both were fitted with skull caps to monitor electrical activity in their brains. Instead of burning more energy to complete his complex cup-stacking routine speedily and flawlessly, Nabor’s brain used considerably less energy than Eagleman’s brain used to perform the routine much more slowly. In fact, Eagleman described Nabor’s brain as serene.

Eagleman’s brain burned more energy because he had to think about what he was doing and conscious thought burns more energy than zombie systems and alien subroutines burn.

When a professional baseball player connects his bat with a pitch that is traveling too fast for his conscious mind to track, he is leveraging a well-honed alien subroutine.

Your brain rewrites itself based on the things you repeatedly practice, such has hitting a ball with a bat, driving, or swimming. Some of those things could be classified as skills while others might better be classified as habits. Whether they are skills or habits, once they become “etched into the circuitry of the brain,” you lose conscious control over them. Your brain doesn’t particularly care what skills or habits (good or bad) are turned into zombie systems. The purpose of the process, as Eagleman says, is to free up resources, allowing the conscious you to attend to and absorb other tasks.

Because you lose conscious control of zombie systems and they run automatically, it’s quite difficult to change them—to put it mildly.

Learning to Ride the Backwards Bicycle

Engineer Destin Sandlin, creator of the website Smarter Every Day, was challenged to ride a bicycle that had been modified so that when you turn the handlebars to the right, the wheel turns left, and when you turn the handlebars to the left, the wheel turns right. Watch him try—and fail—to ride the bike, and then offer to pay other people if they are able to ride the bike 10 feet.

“Once you have a rigid way of thinking,” Sandlin says, “you cannot change that, even if you want to.” Riding a bicycle, for most of us, is a hard-wired zombie system. Since we don’t have conscious control over the bicycle-riding algorithm, knowing that the bicycle has been altered has no effect on our ability to modify the algorithm—at least not right away.

It took Sandlin eight months of regular practice to learn how to ride the backwards bicycle. However, he noticed that the old pathway was still there and minor distractions, such as a cell phone ringing, could cause his brain to “jump back on the old road it was more familiar with.”

Sandlin’s young son, on the other hand, who had been riding a bicycle for three years, required only two weeks to get the hang of the modified bicycle.

When Sandlin attempted to ride a normal bicycle again after having more or less mastered the backwards bicycle, he couldn’t do it at first. But after about 20 minutes, his brain slipped back into gear, and he was able to remain upright. Think about that when you’re struggling with changing a habit you’ve had for years or maybe even decades. It takes a great deal of repetition and persistence to master a replacement behavior but very little provocation to revert back to the old path.

Consciousness on the Sidelines

Having the knowledge, information, or even will to change your behavior are all System 2 (conscious) processes. They’re certainly useful and even desirable. But a habit is a System 1 (unconscious) zombie system that is not immediately responsive to your conscious intentions or attentions.

In fact, those System 2 processes can sometimes get in the way. Eagleman says:

Not only do we run alien subroutines; we also justify them. We have ways of retrospectively telling stories about our actions as though the actions were always our idea. As an example…I mentioned that thoughts come to us and we take credit for them (“I just had a great idea!), even though our brains have been chewing on a given problem for a long time and eventually served up the final product. We are constantly fabricating and telling stories about the alien processes running under the hood.

Essentially we come up with conscious explanations for unconscious systems we have no access to. When we think we understand something, but we don’t, we’re likely to also think we know what to do about it. But we don’t.

If your brain is running an alien subroutine or a zombie system you don’t want it to run, you have to make like Destin Sandlin and practice the new routine over and over and over again. And you have to be prepared to have your brain “correct” you back to your old behavior at the least provocation.

When that happens, it’s far more productive to get back up on the horse—or bicycle—than it is to create a story about it.

Part of the series A-Z: An Alphabet of Change.

R Is for Rewards

March 1, 2017 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

Your brain enjoys rewards so much that it actually has a whole system devoted to them. The neurotransmitter dopamine—sometimes referred to as the pleasure chemical—is part of the reward system. It’s released both when you experience a reward and when you expect to experience one. As the release of dopamine fills you with feelings of pleasure, your brain associates those feelings with whatever you just did or ingested. It’s called associative conditioning.

That association is the basis of the brain’s reward system, the purpose of which is to ensure your survival by helping you learn and remember the behaviors and substances that are good for you. Many different substances, activities, and behaviors trigger the release of dopamine. Some of them, in addition to food and sex, are:

social interactions
music
generosity
scary movies, scary situations, or scary thoughts
psychoactive drugs (alcohol, cocaine, heroin, nicotine, etc.)
gambling
sugar

Your Brain Runs on Rewards

For the most part, your brain’s reward system functions automatically without your conscious intervention. You probably don’t pay a lot of attention to it other than being aware that some things are a lot more pleasurable than others, and of course you want to engage in the behaviors or ingest the substances that are pleasurable.

While you may have no problem thinking of some experiences as rewarding, you might be ambivalent—or worse—about using rewards intentionally to help you modify your own behavior. As a being with a prefrontal cortex, you may think you aren’t susceptible to rewards the way your puppy is. Or you might be under the impression you shouldn’t need to use rewards. You should just be able to make up your mind to do something and then do it.

Maybe you think you don’t—or shouldn’t—need to reward yourself for doing what you want to do or what’s in your own best interest. Maybe you believe knowing what you want to do, why you want to do it, and how to do it is sufficient. You’re an adult. You have self-discipline and self-control. Or you can develop it. Rewards might be OK for young children. Or pets. But you don’t need them.

If that’s where you’re coming from, well, science does not support your position. It turns out all of us are hardwired to be “insatiable wanting machines.” If you don’t learn how to use the brain’s reward system, it will continue having its way with you.

Let’s say you want to begin a new habit. If there are no rewards, or weak rewards, habits are much less likely to take hold. That’s because the basal ganglia, which is the part of the brain that turns repetitive behaviors into habits, depends on having enough dopamine to operate efficiently.

I hand out pages of stickers to the clients in my Goals, Habits & Intentions course. Some people love them and immediately figure out how to use them as rewards. Others hold onto them for weeks, wondering what to do with them. (“Why do I have these?”) Some have no problem connecting awarding themselves a sticker with getting a reward. Others go through the motions without making that connection.

A reward is positive reinforcement. It motivates you to repeat the behavior. In the case of long-term goals, small hits of dopamine encourage you to keep moving forward, so it pays to know where you are headed. And it works better to acknowledge and celebrate each small accomplishment along the way (often a sticker will do) than to wait for one big jolt of dopamine at the end (an entire spa day).

Benefits Are Not Rewards

If there were no benefit to you for embarking on a particular course of action, there would be no point in doing it. Benefits answer the question of why you want to do something. So it’s useful to clearly identify all the benefits that would—or could—accrue if you accomplish what you set out to do. But you identify benefits via the conscious part of your brain, and rewards are processed by the unconscious.

Celebrations Are Not Rewards

In behavior-change terms, a celebration is an impromptu acknowledgement of something you’ve accomplished. The difference between a reward and a celebration is in how you use it, not what it is. In order for something to be effective as a reward, you need to crave it. That’s because dopamine is triggered by the expectation of a reward. So in order for you—and your brain—to crave a reward:

The reward needs to be something you really want (enjoy).
The reward needs to be identified ahead of time: what exactly will you get when you complete or accomplish the thing you set out to do?
You also need to follow through and actually give yourself the reward. (You might not think this needs to be stated, but it does.)

Using Rewards = Using Your Brain

You may believe that accomplishment should be its own reward, but your brain doesn’t see it that way—and it’s the way your brain sees it, not the way you do, that matters. Sure some activities and accomplishments are intrinsically rewarding, but that’s not the case for all activities. Rewards help your brain help you accomplish the things you set out to do and turn desirable behaviors into habits.

Because your brain’s reward system operates with or without your participation, you can develop habits you don’t want to have that may be extremely difficult to change or stop. And while the conscious part of the brain is certainly better at many things than the unconscious part of the brain is, the reverse is also true. When it comes to modifying behavior, the smartest thing the conscious part of the brain can do is recognize the value of the reward system—and learn how to use it effectively.