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Goals Toolkit: How to Set & Achieve Your Goals

Huberman Lab

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Visualizing Failure: Motivating Yourself When Feeling Unmotivated

Visualizing the end result and positive outcomes of achieving a goal is not an effective strategy for motivation. Instead, when feeling unmotivated, spend one to three minutes visualizing failure and the negative consequences of not achieving the goal. This helps to activate certain elements of the autonomic nervous system and release neurochemicals associated with pain and negative thoughts, such as epinephrine, nor epinephrine, and dopamine. Contrary to the myth that visualizing something creates the same neural circuit states as actually experiencing it, visualizing failure can trigger the motivation to take action towards the goal. Therefore, when highly motivated, spend time visualizing positive outcomes, but when experiencing procrastination and lack of motivation, focus on the negative feelings and consequences of failure to get motivated.

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