Hacking Your Brain For Success: Warrior Mind Podcast #447
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In this episode of the Warrior Mind Podcast I’m going to discuss several ways you can hack your brain to achieve personal success and peak performance.
Hacking Your Brain for Success
Everyone wants to be successful but only a few accomplish their goals. Have you ever asked yourself why? Successful people are honest, show gratitude, learn from failure, have a vision, and have high emotional intelligence but you’ll be surprised to know that these traits are not the only key to success. According to research, success is linked to science precisely neuroscience and how humans can condition their brains to accomplish their life goals and dreams. The brain is a very important muscle in your body as it controls various functions such as circulation, movement, temperature regulation, nervous function and processes, and stores information you come across in your life. In other words, your brain is the control center in your body and you can hack it to make it perform at a better rate to think faster and respond quicker.
The neuroscience of success entails that human brains function in three different areas as follows;
- Reticular activating system (RAS)
- The release of dopamine
- Your memory
We understand that not everyone is a science expert and we will try to explain what each means and how you can hack your brain for success.
1. The Reticular Activating System (RAS)
RAS is among the most important parts of your brain. It’s located in the core of your brain stem where it connects with your spinal cord, whose function is to influence cognition and filter nearly 8 million bits of information between your conscious and subconscious mind. What this means is that RAS eliminates the information you don’t need and whatever passes the RAS filter eventually enters the cerebrum where it’s converted into conscious emotions, thoughts or both.
The author of the Courage to Succeed, Ruben Gonzalez states that cerebrum is indeed the center of thought but only responds to messages allowed by RAS. He compares RAS to Google where you can type what you want by a keyword and it will filter out everything you’re not interested in. The messages that get through RAS are the ones important to you. For instance, if you are preparing for an official speech, your RAS will filter in the thoughts such as resources and tools that can make your presentation a success.
According to Gonzalez therefore, when you keep all your goals and dreams at the top of your mind, the harder it is for your subconscious mind to work and reach them. If you want to be successful and make a difference in your life, write your goals down every day preferably every morning, visualize your intended outcome and finally, say your affirmation that you will achieve your goals no matter what. That way, you’ll be in a good position to focus your subconscious mind on things that are most important to you.
2. Dopamine feedback loops
Have you ever asked yourself why you feel good upon succeeding in doing something? Well, it’s because of the release of dopamine. The founding partner of Method3, Mark Lukens wrote that success triggers your brain to release chemical rewards preferably neurotransmitter dopamine, a well-known chemical for its role in addiction and drug use. Dopamine determines how your brain functions and produces a sense of pleasure anytime you achieve a big win.
With that in mind, we can fearlessly say that dopamine is a factor of motivation that drives you to do what seems to be productive. Unfortunately, the response of dopamine is short-term but due to the fact that your brain can remember how great it was before, you live your life trying to seek it each and every day and that’s when dopamine loop comes in.
After experiencing success repeatedly, the delight you had initially diminishes with time. For you to understand better, let’s think of a video game. When playing a video game, you are motivated to win and regardless of how many times you lose, you keep on trying. When you win for the first time, you feel so excited but the second or third win doesn’t make you feel as good as before and that’s when you go an extra mile for a more challenging level or seek bigger rewards.
Dopamine loop motivates you to achieve something you’ve never had before. For instance, if you are aiming to acquire three clients in two weeks, your next goal would be acquiring six clients within a week. Even though your next goal will be more challenging, it will definitely be more rewarding and the more you achieve what you want, the higher you’ll set your goals for an even bigger reward. Dopamine loop, therefore, helps you to remove any goals or work that’s demotivating and helps you to only focus on what will take you to a higher level.
3. Memories
Neuroscientists have worked so hard to study how the brain retrieves memories and luckily, they have also studied how to determine success. Let’s take it this way. If you’ve ever gone mountain biking with your friends and you fell and injured yourself, chances are that you’ll be discouraged from mountain biking in the future. Similarly, if you started a business but it failed, you’ll be hesitant to take such a risk again.
According to scientists, humans can edit any bad memory and successfully remove the negative associations. Interestingly you can edit good memories to improve your road to success. If you have bad memories, you can weaken them by bringing them back and then letting them get dimmer and smaller. From there, insert new details that will fill your memory such as a time when you were giving a speech but failed miserably and imagine that the audience was funny and you couldn’t hold your laughter. Do that 5-10 times and that memory will surely make you laugh softly.
If you want to strengthen your memories, think of all the good memories that have happened in your life as clear as they happened a few minutes ago. Recall how exciting the experience was for 5-10 times. This will make you jubilant and you can effortlessly use this approach to keep you motivated as you strive to succeed.
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Hacks to rewire your brain for success
Are you tired of living a stagnated life? If yes, we have great news that you can rewire your brain and achieve all the goals you’ve ever dreamed of. Does it seem impossible? There’s nothing to be doubtful of as 30 hours of training can change your life forever. Basically, the training focuses on various neuroscience techniques that enhance your speech patterns, memory and cognition, as well as reading comprehension. One hour a day for thirty days can help you achieve life-long success and the training is simple and straightforward and entails the following tasks;
- Exercise and meditation – Daily exercise such as jogging, walking or swimming releases endorphins that boost creativity and helps improve your problem-solving skills. Meditation trains your brain to enhance positive traits such as decision making and focus, and diminishes mental barriers or limitations
- Consume Omega-3s and healthy fats – Omega-3s and healthy fats have been studied and proven to enhance cerebral circulation and keep the levels of dopamine in your brain active
- Precision affirmations – Have you ever heard that what you say is what you become? Fortunately, that’s true. If you want to make a difference in your life, make a clear, brief and definitive statement about who you are like you mean it, and your subconscious mind will take over and act according to that belief
- Make it a habit to say your ‘Chief Aim’ every day – Everyone should have a well-defined and specific statement of purpose signifying who they want to become someday. This statement has the power to change your attitude from pessimism to optimism and can guide the subconscious mind. Write your ‘Chief Aim’ on your notebook or on your bedroom’s wall and say it as loudly as you can every morning and evening and watch as you traverse the heights of success
- Get enough sleep – Getting high-quality is very crucial for high brain functioning. According to experts, you need 6 ½ to 8 hours of sleep every night depending on your personal preferences to remain attentive and focused. Sleeping less than 6 ½ is surely not good for your body as well as your productivity
- 15 minutes a day – It might take ages to acquire a new skill or master a current skill, but 15 minutes per day can change your life forever. Therefore, spare 15 minutes in your busy schedule to learn something new, as it will positively impact your brain
- Remove yourself from negative and stressful environments – The environment around you has a direct impact on the health of your brain. An unhealthy and negative physical environment can be harmful and prevent you from reaching your goals. If you think your environment is affecting you negatively, move to a more positive environment and success will be all yours
- Visualization is the key – Visualization helps you to feel closer to situations that haven’t happened yet which in turn retrains your subconscious mind. For instance, if in your mind you can see yourself as financially stable, your subconscious will process it as a reality and you’ll become financially successful
Final thought
Your brain is the central processing unit in your body and its activity helps you to experience life. Using the above hacks, you can excellently boost the ability of your brain and by learning and practicing them, you’ll experience higher intelligence, greater cognitive performance and marked success in life. Regardless of how fixed your schedule is, you can devote one hour daily for one month to improve the health of your brain and you will be able to operate on a much higher frequency. So what are you waiting for? Start programming your brain today for success.
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