Gemma Speck

Most of us assume that we are driven by the reward itself, the promotion, the text back, the dopamine hit from social media, from impulse shopping, from dessert achievement, but psychology and neuroscience show that what actually drives behavior far more powerfully is the anticipation of the reward.

It is the possibility of pleasure, not always the pleasure itself that keeps us moving.

And this, knowing this can change how we motivate ourselves.

If anticipation is what energizes you or energizes us, then creating small moments of reward is better than large, massive ones.

Goals work better when they feel just within reach.

Breaking down tasks and giving yourself micro rewards along the way is going to improve your motivation to carry through.

Habits become easier when there's some sense of emotional payoff and there's some anticipation attached to their achievement.

That is how we can use this new understanding of dopamine to actually apply principles of reward and motivation and anticipation to our lives and just get more stuff done.

So there you go.

That is the end of our little mini bonus episode on the psychology or the debunked psychology of dopamine.

I hope that you've enjoyed it.

I hope that it's given you some fun facts to share at the dinner table or with your friends.

I think I said this in our last episode, but now you can be that annoying person who corrects people when they use the word dopamine wrong.

It's satisfying the first time and then you start to realize that people don't like you as much.

But I just think it's good for our own self-knowledge and our own self-awareness.

So I hope you enjoyed this episode.

Remember, we have a bunch more episodes just like this debunking popular psychology myths.

We did one last week on the myth of the frontal lobe developing at 25.

If you want more fun history behind psychological principles, that is an amazing one to listen to.

The link between... Here's a spoiler.