As we move into a new year, the routine is to make resolutions to renew focus on new goals or to increase effort into current efforts. What we tend to see from our lens as coaches, is a rapid tail off from these goals as the illusion of calendar reset fades away, and the routine of regular life rolls along. There is a life hack, aka our born biology that we can use to ensure we can achieve our goals while gaining more satisfaction from the process.

What I want to talk about is tuning your dopamine system up so that discipline to work hard is easier. Most of us don’t like working hard, and as a result put strategies in place, either before or after the hard work, as a reward to get that dopamine spike. “If I complete this workout, ill be a step closer to the games,” “If I get this job done, I can go home early,” etc. Most of us work hard to achieve a reward, and it is a terrific motivator. However, where we feel that dopamine in relation to the task can influence our perception of time and how hard things feel during the effort.

Experiments have been done, whereby people, who have enjoyed a task for the task alone, have been rewarded for the completion of that said task. Over time, the reward at the end was removed. Consequently, the the intrinsic tendency to complete the task was reduced. What was found was that the extrinsic rewards, a reward before or after the task, reduced the enjoyment and pleasure from the task itself. The dopamine baseline was adjusted, and lowered when the reward was received outside of the event. This doesn’t mean rewards are bad, but it is important to understand the dopamine circuit in our body, and how it influences our perception of time as well as pleasure in the task.

The key is to decide upon developing a growth mindset and learning to fake it till you make it. Essentially fibbing to yourself during the task, especially if it is hard, that you are loving it, and enjoy it. The dopamine will help you get through something that may be physically quite painful and actually turn it all into something you enjoy. For coach Tom, this is burpees. He’s far too big and heavy for CrossFit, and performing burpees requires a tremendous amount of energy over moderate to high volume reps. Rather than saying, this will suck, lets just get through it and get it done (reward being free and done with them) to instead, “I suck at these, I have an opportunity here to get some volume in and get better.” The reward then becomes the process of actually doing those shitty movements.

Remember, dopamine marks time, so that when you push through hard things with a view to an end reward, that eventual reward comes later and later. The hard work gets dragged out and becomes longer and harder. If you enjoy the process its self, time flies, you will have more focus, learning capacity which stacks next time you do it, and you’ll have more energy from the body. When the habit of releasing dopamine during the hard effort becomes a habit, it becomes reflexive and you can apply it to all manner of things in your life. You decide that you enjoy it, you take control, and you are no longer ruled by the extrinsic reward.

The ability to access this powerful part of our dopamine circuitry is game changing. It will turn hard work into a great experience, that improves over time. Don’t layer dopamine spiking rewards on top of this simple method. Don’t spike before, or after but during the effort itself.