Tying rewards systems to long-term goals

Is it possible to rewire our brains to crave delayed gratification?

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In David Brooks’ The Road to Character (2015) he shares wisdom from Saint Augustine, a man who lived from 354 - 430, that captures a strange human phenomenon: “What sort of mysterious creature is a human being, who can't carry out his own will, who knows his long-term interest but pursues short-term pleasure, who does so much to screw up his own life?”

thanks to advancements in AI, it is now easy to see St. Augustine holding a brain

It’s not logical but we all do it. It’ can be incredibly frustrating when this happens over the long-term because it can make us feel stuck. Our brains have a built in rewards systems that promote certain behaviors, most notably dopamine, which is the primary hormone in the science of motivation.

Originally dopamine was released when man completed survival activities such as hunting for food, gathering resources and building shelters as well as through social bonding. Fast forward, with the current levels of food availability and technology, cheaper dopamine sources are readily available through easy access food, drinking, drugs and social media - each of these release dopamine without requiring much effort.

Sometimes our wiring causes us to prioritize short term activities that are not necessary in-line with our long-term goals. A few questions to consider:

• in what ways am I promoting cheap dopamine activities that are not in-line with my longer term goals and priorities?

• is it possible to shift the way I act and reward myself to promote activities that are in-line with my longer term goals and priorities?

• is this shift what people mean when they talk about “falling in love with the process” or shifting from outcome orientation to process orientation?

I don’t have the answers here but they are worthy questions. I’d love to have a podcast conversations with someone in this space. My initial thought is that the following could be keys to start this process of rewiring:

• get clear on long-term goals

• create list of daily & weekly activities needed to make progress towards long-term goals

• create list of top activities that bring us pleasure or satisfaction - for me one of the biggest ones is coffee.

• map the activities we love to be a direct reward for the activities that promote our long-term goals (i.e. Ivan Pavlov’s theory of classical conditioning famously known through the Pavlov’s dogs experiment)

• track + intentionally celebrate daily wins and accomplishment of micro goals

As humans we are wired for craftsmanship, depth and mastery. Driving alignment between our long term goals, daily activities and sense of fulfillment is a worthy pursuit.

-Adam