← Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning
Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning
Phase 2 Review: The Motivation Loop: How to Keep Effort Worthwhile
00:28:54
Loading summary
Transcript2 lines
- [00:02]
A
Welcome Back to season 15 of the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast. I'm Andrea Samadhi, and on this podcast, we bridge the science behind social and emotional learning, emotional intelligence, and practical neuroscience so we can create measurable improvements in well being, achievement, productivity and results. And if you're new here, welcome. We're currently reviewing past episodes in season 15, organized as a roadmap of the brain's foundational systems. Instead of treating neuroscience, health, mindset and performance as separate topics like we've done the past 14 seasons, we're now exploring how these systems come online in sequence. In phase one, we focused on regulation and safety. Because without it, nothing else in the brain fully activates. If we don't feel safe, the brain shifts into survival mode. And when that happens, the systems we need for motivation, focus and learning don't fully come online. And by the end of this season, my hope is that we can all step back and ask, where am I out of alignment? Is it with regulation? Is it my thinking or my focus or belief? Is it how I'm learning or connecting with others? Because once we see the gap, we can begin to close it. And the goal is not more effort, it's better alignment. And when these systems are aligned, effort feels easier, learning becomes faster, and results become more consistent. Because peak performance isn't about doing more. It's about aligning the systems that drive our results. This week, we're wrapping up phase two, neurochemistry and motivation. Over the past several months, we've explored some of the most important drivers of human behavior. Attention, effort, learning and performance. Through the work of Bob Proctor, Dr. Carolyn Leaf, John Medina, Dr. Anna Lemke, Chuck Hillman, and Frederica Fabricis. We've been focused on one fundamental question. What drives sustained effort and forward movement? And today, I want to zoom out and connect everything we've learned into one simple framework, the motivation loop. More importantly, we'll look at what keeps the loop going, what causes it to break, how can we strengthen it over time, and why doing hard things may actually help grow parts of our brain responsible for persistence and self regulation. Now, before we dive into the motivation loop, let's remember what we've covered so far. One of the biggest insights from neuroscience is that high performance doesn't happen in one part of the brain. It happens through a sequence. Just like a computer has an operating system, our brain has an operating system for learning, achievement and human performance. And over the past several months, we've been building that system one phase at a time. Phase one was was regulation and safety. And the question we asked was, is the nervous system safe enough to learn? Before motivation, before focus, before performance, the brain must feel regulated. And through guests like Dr. Bruce Perry, Dr. Kristin Holmes, or Antonio Zadra and Sui Wang, we learned that sleep matters, recovery matters, rhythm matters, and our stress levels matter. A dysregulated brain struggles to learn. When there's no regulation, there's no learning. Then phase two, neurochemistry and motivation. Once the brain is regulated, we move to the next question. What drives behavior? Focus and sustained effort. And this is the phase we've just completed. We explored dopamine, belief, thought patterns, attention, reward, burnout, and energy. And perhaps the biggest lesson from this phase was that the brain repeats what it rewards. And this became the foundation of what I called the motivation loop. And if you look at the graphic in the show notes, look at the green side on the left first. The healthy loop begins with meaning and purpose. When we know why something matters, effort becomes easier to sustain. And this was Bob Proctor's message, and it was actually the message that launched author Simon Sinek's entire career about knowing your why people can tolerate enormous challenge when the goal is meaningful. An example here would be learning a new skill. Imagine someone decides to learn a new language. At first, progress is slow. Mistakes are frequent. The work feels uncomfortable. But they have a purpose. Maybe they want to connect on a deeper level with family. Maybe they want to travel. Maybe they want a new career opportunity. Purpose keeps them engaged long enough to continue the hard work. Then we went to belief and how it shapes our thought. If I believe I can improve, my thoughts become more constructive. And this was Dr. Carolyn Leaf's work. Our thoughts influence our neurochemistry. Positive thoughts don't guarantee success, but they keep us moving toward it. Then we looked at attention and how it drives our growth. This was John Medina's contribution. Attention determines what the brain decides matters. The brain learns what we repeatedly focus on. What we attend to, we strengthen. And the action we take creates progress. Once attention is focused, our behavior follows. We study, we practice, we train, and we learn. Then we looked at how reward reinforces behavior. This was Dr. Anna Lembke's work. The reward doesn't have to be huge. Sometimes it's just simply noticing progress. The brain says the effort produced a result and the loop continues. An example here would be with exercise. A person begins walking 20 minutes every day. In week one, there's no major changes. Week two, energy improves. Week three, sleep improves. Week four, resting heart rate begins dropping. The brain notices progress. The Effort feels worthwhile. The loop strengthens and the behavior repeats. We've spent a lot of time on understanding how to keep the loop from breaking. But let's look at the red side now. How the loop breaks. The loop rarely breaks all at once. Usually one link weakens first, then the others follow. Let's look at loop breaker number one. Loss of meaning. What happened? So a student studies only to pass a test. The test ends, the reason disappears, motivation disappears and the loop breaks because there's no longer a compelling why. What could have prevented it? Reconnect a purpose. Instead of I have to study for this test. Shift to I'm building skills for the future version of myself. And Bob Proctor taught us that goals are not just about achievement, they're about growth. So a loop repair. Here ask why does this matter beyond today? When meaning returns, motivation returns. Let's look at loop breaker number two. Negative thought patterns. What happens here? Someone starts a health journey and after a difficult week, they think I'm failing. Nothing's changing, I'll never get there. And their attention shifts towards the evidence of failure. The loop weakens. So how could we have prevented this? Focus on progress instead of perfection. Dr. Carolyn Leaf would remind us that thoughts influence our neurochemistry. And a better question might be what is improving that I haven't noticed yet. A loop repair. Here look for small wins. Better sleep, more energy, more consistency, better habits. Progress fuels our dopamine and dopamine fuels our effort. Loop breaker number three. Distracted attention. What happened? You sit down to work, a text arrives on your phone, then an email, then social media, then another interruption at your office door. Attention becomes fragmented, learning slows, progress slows and the reward disappears. What could have prevented this? Protect your attention. John Medina taught us that our attention determines what the brain decides matters. A loop repair. Create 30 minute focused blocks. Have phone free work periods with notifications turned off and do one task at a time sessions. The brain rewards completion, not multitasking. Loop breaker number four. Too much challenge. What happens here? This one may surprise many people. Doing hard things strengthens the brain, but doing impossible things breaks the loop. So for example, a person starts a new diet, a new exercise plan, a new business or a new habit. And they try to change everything at once. The challenge becomes overwhelming. What could have prevented this loop break? Start smaller. The anterior midcingulate cortex in your brain grows when challenges are difficult, but when they're achievable. So a loop repair. Here ask what's the smallest difficult thing that I can consistently repeat? Not what's the hardest thing I can do today. Loop breaker number five Poor recovery with low energy what happened here? This is actually my hiking example that I've mentioned previously. Everything was working with my hikes. My recovery improved and measuring with my whoop wearable device. My age improved by 6.4 years, my fitness improved, VO2 max increased and then I increased the challenge. Longer hikes, more strain, more effort, but not enough recovery time. In between, I could actually see the reward disappearing in real time. The effort at the end of these hikes felt exhausting instead of energizing. I know that doing difficult things makes my brain stronger, but when the reward was disappearing, I was close to giving up on something I really enjoyed. So what could have prevented this loop from breaking? Recovery needed to increase alongside the challenge. The mistake wasn't hiking or making the hike more challenging. The mistake was believing the that more is always better. So a loop repair for this alternate hard days with easy days and increase recovery as strain increases. As Frederica Fabbricz has taught us, performance isn't built through effort alone. It's built through effort and recovery. And once I put more attention on recovery before pushing again, the broken motivation loop repaired and the end of those difficult hikes became energizing again with the right amount of rest. Loop breaker 6 no visible progress what happened here? Let's look at a Salesperson. They make 50 calls, 100 calls, 150 calls with no results. The brain begins asking why bother? The reward disappears. What could have prevented this loop from breaking? Measure leading indicators instead of outcomes. Instead of focusing only on the end result, sales track smaller items like calls completed, meetings booked, relationships built, and the skills that we improve. A loop repair here. Celebrate effort metrics, not just outcome metrics. The brain needs evidence that effort matters. And if the strategy you're using is not yielding results, try a different one. Ask others who are having success, what they're doing and how they're getting results. Once you can identify where your loop is breaking, fixing it requires just doing something that you weren't doing before. Now. The big lesson here is that every loop break in this phase points back to one question. What link failed? Was it meaning? Was it our thoughts, our attention, our progress, our recovery, or our challenge? Because the loop rarely breaks all at once, usually one link weakens first. And the good news is if you can identify the broken link, you can repair the loop. And what about doing hard things? This is one of the most fascinating concepts that we explore explored this phase. It was the research surrounding the anterior mid CINGULATE cortex in the brain. This area of the brain appears to play an important role in persistence, self regulation, attention control, and doing things we don't like doing. Research suggests this area strengthens when we repeatedly choose meaningful challenges. Not impossible challenges, not burnout, not exhaustion, but meaningful challenges. An example. Choosing the workout you don't feel like doing. The difficult conversation you may have been, avoiding, the presentation that makes you nervous, or the study session when you'd rather just be scrolling on your phone every time we choose effort over comfort, we may be strengthening the neural systems responsible for persistence and, and, researchers would also say, the will to live. So the secret to keeping the loop going. After everything we've learned this phase, the answer is surprisingly simple. The loop stays alive when effort feels worthwhile. This means there's meaning, there's purpose, there's focus, progress, recovery, and challenge. But not too much challenge, because challenge without recovery becomes burnout, and recovery without challenge becomes stagnation. So there's a sweet spot in the middle. Now, instead of blaming ourselves, we can just start diagnosing the systems to build a stronger, more resilient version of ourselves. And it's here that I created the find your gap framework. Whenever you feel stuck, unmotivated, burned out, distracted, overwhelmed, or plateaued, ask yourself which phase is broken? Because the problem isn't rarely everything. Usually it's one phase creating a bottleneck for the others. To find out if you've got a gap in phase one with regulation and safety, ask yourself, am I sleeping well? Am I recovered? Is stress overwhelming me? Is my nervous system regulated? And a sign this is your gap. If you've got anxiety, exhaustion, brain fog, poor sleep, or irritability, for example, a teacher can't focus. They assume they need more motivation, but they're sleeping five hours a night. The real gap isn't motivation, it's regulation. So a solution to fix this gap. Get more sleep, improve your recovery, and find ways to manage that stress. What about a gap in phase two? Neurochemistry and motivation. To find out if this is your gap, ask yourself, do I know why this matters? Am I seeing progress? Has the reward disappeared? Have I lost momentum? Signs. This is your gap. You've got procrastination, you've got a lack of drive, you've lost your enthusiasm, and you feel stuck. An example here. This was my hiking example. I still had the ability, I still had the discipline, but I simply stopped feeling rewarded by the effort. I was putting in a solution here to repair this motivation loop, reconnect to purpose, reduce challenge, temporarily Improve recovery and look for progress. What about a phase three gap with movement, learning and cognition? This is what we're going into. If you think there might be a gap here, ask yourself, am I moving enough? Am I physically engaged? Am I learning new things? Is my brain being challenged A sign? This might be your gap if you've got low energy, mental sluggishness, poor concentration, or just feeling mentally flat. For example, someone spends 10 hours sitting at their desk. Their motivation is fine, their sleep is fine, but they're sedentary. Movement is the missing ingredient. A solution here. Always move first. The research from Dr. Chuck Hillman and Dr. Rady suggests that movement improves our attention, our mood, learning and our memory. And we haven't covered this yet. But if there's a phase four gap with our perception, emotion and social intelligence. To pinpoint if this is your gap, ask yourself, am I seeing this situation clearly? Am I understanding others? Do I feel connected? A sign. This might be your gap. If you've got conflict in your relationships, miscommunication, you feel isolated. An emotional reactivity. For example, a leader thinks, nobody supports my vision. The real issue isn't support. The real issue is communication. The gap isn't motivation, it's perception. So a solution here. Improve listening, emotional awareness, perspective taking, and our relationships. And finally, phase five. If there's a gap here with integration, insight and meaning, ask yourself, does what I'm doing align with who I want to become? Am I moving towards something meaningful? Do I have clarity? A sign you might have a gap here. You've got success, but you don't feel fulfilled. You feel lost. A lack of direction, and you're constantly chasing different goals. An example here. Someone who's achieved everything they want professionally, but they still feel empty. The gap isn't performance, it's meaning. A solution here. Reconnect with values, purpose, our identity and our contribution to the world. So, a powerful question to ask yourself at the end of every week. Ask where is my gap? Is it with regulation? Is it with my motivation, my movement, my relationships, or my meaning? Because once you identify the gap, the solution becomes much easier to see. So to review and conclude this week's episode 399, the Motivation Loop. What keeps it going and what breaks it? As we wrap up this week's episode, we reviewed the most important, important lessons that we learned throughout phase two, neurochemistry and motivation. And over the past several months, we've explored a powerful question. What drives behavior, focus, sustained effort, and ultimately achievement through the work of Bob Proctor, Dr. Leaf, Dr. Medina Dr. Anna Lembke, Dr. Hillman, and Frederica Fabricius. We discovered that motivation. Motivation is not something we simply have or don't have. Motivation is a system. And when that system is working properly, it creates a cycle that reinforces growth, learning, and forward movement. But what keeps the motivation loop going? We learned that the healthy motivation loop begins with meaning and purpose. When we know why something matters, we're more likely to stay engaged long enough to see the results. And Bob Proctor taught us that goals are not just about what we achieve. They're about who we become in the process. Then we looked at healthy thought patterns. Dr. Carolyn Leaf reminded us that our thoughts influence our neurochemistry. What we repeatedly think affects what we repeatedly feel, and ultimately, what we repeatedly do. Then we looked at focused attention. Dr. John Medina showed us that attention determines what the brain decides matters. What we consistently focus on becomes stronger. And what we ignore often fades away, then earned rewards. Dr. Lemke taught us that the brain repeats what it rewards. Progress. Even small progress creates reinforcement. The brain says the effort was worth it, so let's do it again. Then we looked at movement in action. Dr. Hillman showed us that movement doesn't just strengthen the body. It activates the brain for learning, attention, memory, and performance, and then sustainable energy. Frederica Fabricius reminded us to find the sweet spot with challenge, and that sustained performance depends on balancing challenge with recovery. Without recovery, motivation eventually collapses. And what breaks the loop? We also learned that the motivation loop rarely breaks all at once. Usually, one link weakens first. A loss of meaning, negative thought patterns, distracted attention, no visible progress, poor recovery, or too much challenge without enough reward. When that happens, the brain begins asking, why am I doing this? And when effort no longer feels worthwhile, motivation begins to disappear. In my personal aha moment, looking at the motivation loop, one of the biggest insights for me came from observing my own motivation loop in real time. While I was writing these episodes over the past several months, I'd been tracking my health and performance using the WHOOP wearable device. I was seeing incredible results. Improved cardiovascular fitness, a lower resting heart rate, better recovery, and a lower biological age. Everything suggested my loop was working. And then I pushed harder. I had longer hikes. I added more strain and more effort. And at first, I assumed more effort would give me more progress. I was really looking for more zones 4 and 5. Instead, I noticed something unexpected. I stopped enjoying it. The same hike that once energized me began to feel draining. Near the end, the reward signal weakened. The effort no longer felt worth the Cost. And that's when I started realizing something important. I was watching my motivation loop break in real time. My gap wasn't movement, my gap wasn't motivation. My gap was balancing strain or effort with recovery. I'd increase the challenge without increasing recovery time. And the brain responded exactly the way neuroscience predicts it would. Once I recognized my broken link, the solution wasn't to push harder. The solution was to restore balance. And in phase two, we reviewed the anterior mid cingulate cortex in the brain and the importance of this part of the brain with doing hard things. This area of the brain appears to strengthen when we repeatedly choose meaningful challenges. Not impossible challenges, not burnout, but meaningful challenge. The AMCC is associated with persistence, with focus, self regulation and resilience. And doing those things we just don't feel like doing. And every time we choose effort over comfort, we may be strengthening the very circuits that help us to stay committed when life becomes difficult. Which means the goal isn't to avoid doing hard things. The goal is to find the right amount of challenge that promotes growth without breaking the loop. And one of the most important lessons from this entire phase is this. When motivation declines, don't immediately assume you've lost your drive. Instead, ask yourself, where is my gap? Is it with regulation, motivation, movement, relationships, or meaning? Because when one part of the system falls out of alignment, the entire system feels the impact. Once we can identify the gap, we can begin to repair it. Now, looking ahead as we conclude phase two, we learned how to regulate the brain. We've learned how to engage the brain. Next, we'll explore how to apply these principles in leadership and performance. We've got two special milestone episodes coming up. Episode 400, Leadership Under Pressure with Majid Samadhi. And episode 401, we're looking at advanced Leadership and Trust with Greg Hill. Then we'll officially launch phase three, movement, learning and cognition, where we'll answer the next big question. How does movement shape how the brain learns? We'll explore movement, exercise, brain derived neurotrophic factor attention, memory, executive function, and cognitive performance. Because if motivation gets us moving, movement may be one of the most powerful tools that we have to change the brain itself. And a final thought here, Peak performance isn't about doing more. It's about aligning the systems that drive our results. We can improve this by finding our gaps, by strengthening the weakest link, by keeping the loop alive. And remember, the brain repeats what it rewards. We'll see you next week for episode 400. And until then, keep doing hard things. Things keep strengthening your brain and keep moving forward. We'll see you next week.
- [28:27]
B
If you're enjoying the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning podcast, please don't forget to subscribe so you'll stay up to date with our new episodes. While you're there, please feel free to give us a review or a five star rating as it helps others find us. For more information on our programs, books and tools for schools and the workplace, Visit us at www. AchieveIt360com.